By KMA’s Derek Martin

Last month, KMA recognized seven individuals and four teams as members of the 2023 KMA Sports Hall of Fame class. The class was officially inducted at the annual ceremony held at Shenandoah’s Gladys Wirsig-Jones Auditorium.

Seven individuals and four teams were honored with the 8th class in the KMA Sports Hall of Fame. One of the individuals honored was the late Del Stoltenberg of Rock Port.

An incredibly successful coach at Rock Port, the late Stoltenberg helped the Blue Jays win seven state track titles and led at least nine state football playoff appearances. “The things he taught, the kids that he touched,”  Coach Stoltenberg’s son Jay said, “‘he would stand up here tonight and say, ‘It wasn’t me.’”

Stoltenberg also had state track runner-up teams in three years, finished third in two others and fourth in one more. His football teams at Rock Port had 11 winning seasons in a 15-year span from 1994 to 2009.

Stoltenberg was inducted to the Wayne State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2004 after leading the program for 14 seasons. He was a star athlete at Nebraska City and Peru State, was drafted to the NFL as a punter and taught and coached at Scribner and Grand Island, Nebraska, and Tarkio College in Missouri.

“(He would say) it’s the kids,” Jay Stoltenberg added. “You can win an awful lot of things if you’ve got the horses. He would say, ‘All I have to do is put them in the right direction.’”

Stoltenberg is also in the Peru State Hall of Fame and the Missouri Track and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

He joins former athlete Kim Scamman and the 1979 boys’ track champions and 2008 girls’ track champions from Rock Port in the KMA Sports Hall of Fame.